Coach `Lost` Bears During `87 Strike

After the Bears won their 1987 season opener by rocking the National Football League champion New York Giants 34-19 at Soldier Field, signs of Super Bowl fever swept the city once more-and coach Mike Ditka`s popularity hit new heights.

Ditka took advantage of his appeal and quickly boosted his price per commercial into the $75,000 to $100,000 range. Momentum flowed into other areas as well, particularly motivational speeches, where Ditka now commanded $20,000 per talk.

Some players began grumbling. On one hand Ditka had cautioned his players to cut down on endorsements and devote more time to returning to the Super Bowl. On the other hand, he was selling a piece of himself every chance he could.

``Some of the players were saying that Coach Ditka was doing too much,``

says former Bears cornerback Lorenzo Lynch, now trying to survive the final rosters cuts with the Phoenix Cardinals. ``A lot of people talked under their breath. Players were complaining all the time, in the locker room, on the bus. Their comments started to rub off on people. He`d be talking and (the players would be saying), `Oh, he`s just gonna do it for himself.` ``

In week two of the `87 season, the Bears rolled to another win, 20-3 over Tampa Bay. By this time, NFL players were preparing to strike, stressing the same issue-free agency-that helped trigger a 1982 walkout and the current trial in Minneapolis. NFLPA Executive Director Gene Upshaw viewed the Bears as the linchpin of any labor unrest, knowing full well if Jim McMahon, Mike Singletary, Walter Payton, et al. supported a strike, the rest of the league would follow.

On the Friday before the game against Tampa Bay, player representative Singletary discussed various strike options with Ditka, who was none too pleased. ``Don`t do it, Mike,`` said the son of a legendary steelworkers union leader. ``It`s dumb, it`s stupid.``

Two days later, games scheduled for the following weekend were canceled. Scab, or ``replacement,`` players were brought in. Some coaches, such as Buddy Ryan, openly backed the striking veterans and treated the scab players like lepers. Ditka, naturally, played to win, and his replacement players pounded Ryan and the Eagles 35-3 on the first weekend in October.

The following Sunday, before a game against Minnesota, several Bear veterans set up strike tables in the west parking lot at Soldier Field. Tensions were running high among players. Some were ready for a long fight. Others were already drained by Singletary`s constant ``keep your nuts hot, keep your nuts hot`` speeches, worried the union seemed to have no fallback position on any of its issues. ``What were we keeping our nuts hot for?`` asks Harbaugh four years later. ``Hey, let`s get a strategy here. Why are we doing this?``

Still, much of the team showed up at Soldier Field seeking fan support and a boycott of the game. They found themselves shaken as, one by one, fans stopped to chat, asked for an autograph, then walked right in the stadium.

``It was really disheartening,`` says ex-Bear Gary Fencik. Around halftime the players adjourned to a private room at Fencik`s Hunt Club restaurant, where they watched the impostors beat the Vikings 27-7.

Sitting in the Hunt Club was a team that had learned from the previous season`s mistakes. The backbiting, envy and destructive personal jealousies of 1986 were subsiding. Forty-seven men were now primed for another shot at the Super Bowl. They had believed Ditka to be their coach. They had trusted him. But now the trust had been shattered by Ditka`s defiant anti-union stance.

After the Philadelphia win he had labeled NFL strikers ``goons on the picket line, goon squads,`` a heartless slap across his father`s face if there ever was one. Ditka also praised his replacement defense, boasting how it

``looked the same to me. If you take the names off the jerseys and change around the numbers, you`d never recognize the difference.``

Plainly, Ditka didn`t care about the men who had made him famous. All the restaurant backslapping, his name in lights, plastered all over television, heard daily, almost hourly on the radio, clouded his vision at the wrong time. As Singletary says today, ``He thought he didn`t need us anymore. He thought he could win with any 11 guys he put on the field.``

The back room of the Hunt Club was stone-cold silent as Ditka made his postgame remarks. Somebody swore, the mood darkened by the news the talks between the union and management had broken off again. The next sound was chairs scraping against the floor, guys getting up and just walking out, a lost look on their faces. ``That,`` says Bears kicker Kevin Butler, ``is when the reality of the strike set in.``

``Mike had emphasized the team so much,`` said Fencik, ``his team really felt betrayed.``

The players thought they had Gene Upshaw and the NFLPA Board of Player Reps on their side-until Thursday, Oct. 15, when more than 100 veteran players broke ranks and crossed the picket lines.